


We Always Find Our Way Back Home

by Piehead



Series: Sunshine In Small Doses [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Car Accidents, Confessions, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, It's alluded to, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, pre-zimbits - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 09:11:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8366605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piehead/pseuds/Piehead
Summary: AU of Chapter Six of Once More To the Lake, but could be standalone if you roll with the idea of Kent and Bitty being siblings.Kent worried out of his mind and afraid, finally tells Bitty the truth, albeit not under the circumstances he wanted to.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to Jes for being my lovely beta for this~! I love you, friendo~
> 
> Inspired by a comment on chapter six of Once More To the Lake; [sourcandii](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sourcandii/pseuds/sourcandii) said, "Ngl when I read the title I thought one of them (mostly thought it'd be bits) was going to be in a car accident and then Kent would come to see him and think he's asleep or something and just talk" and I sort of ran with it from there, and now here we are!
> 
> Title taken from "Back Home" by Andy Grammer

Kent received the news from Jack of all people.

He had arrived at Jerry’s, looking around for Eric and trying to find his little brother so that they could talk. He had waited, and waited, and waited, for nearly thirty minutes before he sighed and decided he needed to call Eric to find out where he was. It wasn’t like Eric to be late for one of their meetups; Eric was always punctual and if he couldn’t get there himself he called Kent and Kent picked him up.

The phone rang approximately three times before it was answered. Kent barely started talking, a chirp forming on his lips before he heard the deeper, Canadian-accented, “Hello?” that was Jack’s voice, and Kent felt the confusion and panic that rose in his throat before it had even fully begun to rise, like bile he knew was coming the moment he knew he would have a concussion.

“Jack?” he croaked.

“Kent,” was the cool reply, but there was worry and maybe even a bit of relief in Jack’s tone of voice.

“Where’s Eric?” Kent asked, trying to ignore the way his heart hammered a bit and his chest constricted. When Jack Zimmermann was worried something had to have been wrong.

“Now isn’t a good time,” Jack responded instead, and Kent took notice of the sounds of someone telling him that they needed to move to the emergency room, that the OR was being prepped and Kent could feel his heart in his feet, flashbacks of a night spent in a waiting room with eyes wet with tears a familiar memory he would never be free of.

But Jack wasn’t the one in trouble. Jack had answered Eric’s phone.

“Jack,” Kent’s voice cracked, the tears coming to his eyes hot and fresh, burning him to his core and he knew; he knew, he knew, he knew, and he didn’t want it to be _true_ but he just **_knew_  **. “Where’s Eric?”

“We’re at the hospital. Fifteen minutes from the Haus. Any cab driver knows it. Get. Here,” the tone of Jack’s voice held a note of finality but Kent didn’t need Jack to tell him to be there; Kent was already calling for a cab to pick him up.

“Please, please, please,” Kent was a fucking mess and he knew it and Jack waited, on the other line, while Kent called his cab and then he switched back over and Jack was talking to him, trying to calm him down because if there was one thing Jack Zimmermann remembered about Kent Parson it was that he would give himself a panic attack if someone didn’t keep him grounded.

Kent’s breathing was erratic and harsh when the cab driver pulled up to take him to the hospital. Jack was trying to talk him through a breathing exercise, _in, one, two, three, out, one, two, three,_ exercises that Kent had taught Jack when Jack’s anxiety would’ve consumed him. Kent was barely managing through them and Jack knew it, but there was only so much he could do for Kent and he wanted to do that at least.

“What happened? Is he gonna be okay?” Kent asked because he needed to know, he needed to know if his sunshine was gonna be alright.

“We’ll talk when you get here,” Jack promised, “Breathe. Come on.”

Kent kept up the exercises and he paid the driver more than he needed but he wasn’t thinking straight, his mind was a tunnel and at the end of it was Eric and with each passing moment he wasn’t by Eric’s side Eric got further and further away.

Jack found him just from the sounds of him asking people where he could find Eric Bittle. It wasn’t just Jack there either; his friends were there as well, but Jack was the one to grab Kent and pull him to the side, taking him somewhere no one could see him and helping him calm down, wiping away tears to make sure Kent could get his bearings.

“He’s gonna be fine,” Jack said, a mantra for Kent to chant. Kent just nodded along, numb from the panic attack he was on the verge of having.

Jack’s friends sat with them but Kent stayed at Jack’s side, murmuring to himself that Eric would be alright and trying to think of all the things he would say if Eric woke up.

 _When,_ his mind would correct, _When Eric woke up._

*~*~*

Someone was speaking.

Eric’s ankle felt completely numb, reminding him of when he first broke it when he was eight years old learning how to figure skate with Katya. He remembered her sitting at his bedside, singing to him in Russian, and when he’d asked her what the words meant she’d only replied that they were to help his bones grow stronger. She’d been at his side through the entirety of his recovery and even when the doctors had told him he wouldn’t be able to skate again Eric had proved them wrong, Katya had helped him prove them wrong.

This person was not Katya, though.

“―Mom and dad will love you, they already love you, they wanted to keep you, mom and dad, they wanted to keep you and I wanted to stay with you but then I woke up and you weren’t there and we were leaving and I’m so sorry, Eric, I’m so sorry I was never there, I’m so sorry I’m the worst brother you could’ve asked for, I’m so sorry―”

Eric didn’t have any siblings. He didn’t―

“...Kent?”

The talking stopped.

For a beat, there was nothing, Kent seeming like a deer caught in headlights when he noticed that Eric was watching him. Then, Kent stood, wordlessly, and left the room faster than Eric could ask him to stay, to explain, to _talk to him_ ―

“Bittle?” Jack was there, Jack was in the doorway and there were doctors coming to check on him, to make sure he was alright, to make sure he could see, Eric, look into the light and follow my finger? Good.

It took a total of ten minutes for the Doctor (Dr. Johnson, and didn’t he look familiar? He had a son that had gone to Samwell) to check his vitals and ensure that he wasn’t having any troubles breathing or seeing. He wasn’t concussed, thank god, but his ankle was fractured terribly, almost broken, and he’d had some internal bleeding that was worrying when he first came in, but they’d stopped it and it was less severe than they had initially thought.

“You should be up and moving about fine again in about a month, but stay off that ankle, alright? Also this doesn’t actually matter in the long run but since this is an alternate universe of an alternate universe, you don’t have to worry about any long term pain,” Dr. Johnson smiled. “Rest up. You’ve got big news coming at the end.”

The doctor left, leaving Bitty confused but glad to know he would be able to get up and back on the ice again within a month. Jack was left in the room with him, looking worse for wear.

“Bittle,” he sighed, slumping over in the seat that Kent had sat in, right next to Bitty’s hospital bed, close enough that their hands could touch.

“What happened?” Bitty asked, because he needed to know.

“Some guy missed a stop sign while you were walking. Hit the break too late. It could’ve been worse,” Jack explained.

“I―” he remembered texting Kent to meet him, he remembered leaving the Haus after Jack smiled at him, he remembered stepping out into the street. Then pain. “How’s everyone else?”

“Ransom and Holster had to go, and your parents are on their way here. Lardo and Shitty are in the cafeteria and Kenny―” Jack stopped. He looked towards the doorway. “Kenny.”

Kent peeked into the room from the hall, looking a little afraid. Eric managed a tiny smile at him, before it dawned that Jack was calling Kent by a name that was definitely more affectionate than friendly. He felt his smile fall a little, and Kent immediately stepped away from the doorframe, back into the hall.

Jack didn’t know what he’d just missed. “ _Kent._ ”

Eric knew Kent had just flinched, he didn’t need to see it because the tone of voice Jack used alone hinted at it. Kent stepped into the room, coming over to stand at the other side of Eric’s bed. He looked like he had been through hell, eyes puffy and red. Eric wanted to know why, and how he could make it better.

“Eric,” Kent’s voice cracked a bit.

“Kent,” Eric smiled, lifting his hand, and Kent took it holding on tightly, as if Eric were his very own lifeline.

“I thought we lost you. I thought―” Kent looked away, at Jack, who was giving him an encouraging smile. Eric didn’t know what the silent communication between them could mean, but he could see a conversation taking place in their eyes.

Kent kneeled beside the bed, holding Eric’s hand in both of his now.

“I want―” Kent swallowed around the lump in his throat, “I want to be there for you. I _want_ to. What kind of brother am I if I can’t be?”

Eric’s mind went over the words, a response that had been forming on his tongue dying when he heard the fourth word of the last sentence. He looked at Jack, who just nodded back to Kent, and then he looked at Kent again.

“I _want_ to be, Eric, because you deserve a better brother than me, you deserve someone who didn’t have to leave you when you were so small, you _deserve_ better, and I want to _be_ better, for you,” Kent finished, taking in a shuddering breath. Eric had never seen him like this. He was normally so composed; so confident and powerful and it broke Eric’s heart to see Kent so shattered, and over _Eric himself_ no less.

“Kent…?” Eric still didn’t know what to make of things.

“He told me,” Jack chimed in, because he knew Kent could speak no more, “About you two. We asked the doctor to run a test. The results came back before you woke up, and they were positive.”

Kent brought Eric’s hand to his forehead, a shaky laugh leaving him.

“We’re brothers.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment~! Any feedback is always appreciated!
> 
> Jes' comments while beta reading were "hes too gay to think straight" and "jesus"
> 
> Gosh I love her.
> 
> ~Piehead


End file.
